The Man Who Should Have Died
by BadgerLeopard
Summary: A mysterious disturbance in time summons the Twelfth Doctor to Earth in the year 4000, where someone from the Doctor's past has somehow risen from the grave. What has happened to cause this? In order to solve the mystery, the Doctor will have to confront an old enemy and battle to save the web of time from being shattered...
1. The Man Who Should Have Died - Part 1

**The Man Who Should Have Died**

**Part One**

**Featuring the Twelfth Doctor**

_Space Security Service Base, Central City, Earth, 4015._

In a cupboard near to the main office, a tall blue police box began to materialise. Its lamp flashed a bright white light as it wheezed and howled into existence, shortly before the door opened, and an old scottish man with extraordinarily serious eyebrows and who was currently wearing a red velvet jacket emerged.  
"A cupboard?" the Doctor whinged, "You are a time machine, and you bring me to a cupboard?!"  
He sighed, shutting the door, and made his way out of the cupboard.

He emerged from the cupboard into a large corridor, where people wearing Space Security Service uniform rushed about busily. Oh no, he thought, this is going to have something to do with my past.  
"Excuse me," he asked a passing woman, "would you mind filling me in on recent history?"  
"Who are you? And how did you get into that cupboard?"  
"I'm the Doctor, intergalactic hero and the guy that once saved Charles Darwin from a homicidal space lizard. Would you mind telling me about Kembel?"  
She looked at him with amazed eyes.  
"What do you want to know?"

A few metres away, Commander Marc Cory was reading through a set of documents that proposed a mission to explore the planet Falastra, as there had been recent sightings of Dalek ships.  
It had been two years since he had almost been killed on the planet Kembel, but, at the moment before he had died, he was rescued by a mysterious stranger. The funny thing was that he couldn't remember the stranger's name. All he could recall was a large white room and a wheezing, howling noise.  
A noise that he had heard a few moments ago.  
"Karlina," he said, getting the attention of his personal secretary, "did you hear that?"  
"Did I hear what, Marc?"  
"A noise. Something that I heard before I was rescued, two years ago."  
"You mean the noise that saved your life?"  
"Yes. He's back, I know it."

The woman that the Doctor had met, whose name was Vivietta Mindler, had explained that Marc Cory had been rescued from Kembel moments before he had died, and managed to get a message to Earth about the Dalek plans. There had been a major war between Earth and the Daleks, but eventually the war was won by Earth after Bret Vyon and Sara Kingdom sacrificed themselves in order to destroy the Daleks' Time Destructor.  
"This is worse than I feared." he eventually said to himself, "Somebody's interfered with history, and now Earth's future has been altered in a colossal way."  
"What do you mean?"  
"You probably won't believe me but this future is wrong. All of it. Marc Cory should have died on Kembel, leaving me and my friend Steven to find the recording and defeat the Daleks. This shouldn't have happened."  
"But it did. And now Marc Cory is head of the Space Security Service: that's good, isn't it?"  
The Doctor had a grave expression on his face.  
"A man who should have died is now alive. History can't paper over the cracks with this - Marc Cory being alive could tear the universe in two."  
He then turned back around and headed towards the cupboard.  
"Where are you going?"  
"I need to see what happened on Kembel. Hopefully I can find a way of stopping it!"

Marc was now walking towards where he thought the noise was coming from, at the exact same time as the Doctor was frantically rushing back to the TARDIS. Inevitably, the two of them met, just as the Doctor was about to enter the TARDIS.  
"That can't be right." Marc said, "You looked different when you rescued me. And that looked different when you rescued me."  
He indicated the TARDIS with his hand.  
"I rescued you?" the Doctor wondered, "Or was it someone who was like me?"  
"That thing... It was greyer. But it was definitely you. Or someone like you."  
"This is important, Marc. Can you remember a name?"  
"A name?"  
"Who rescued you on Kembel? Tell me, Marc, this is important!"  
"I can't remember. It's hazy. I remember it clearly and yet I've forgotten it."  
"Of course. Time is trying to fix itself: you've forged this future so hard that the web of time is splitting apart. I'd better get to the main wound before anything catastrophic happens."  
He entered the TARDIS, shutting the door behind him. Soon, the blue box vanished, wheezing and howling away. 

_Kembel._

A green jungle. That was how anyone would describe Kembel. A green jungle that was home, at this moment in time, to a Space Security Agent trying to send a message to Earth. He had no friends to help him. No form of escape. No hope.  
And that was what was pushing him on: he had one chance to get this right, and he had to take that chance.  
"This is Marc Cory," he said into the recorder, "Special Security Service, reporting from the planet Kembel. The Daleks are planning the complete destruction of our galaxy. Together with the powers of the outer galaxies, a war force is being assembled."  
Dozens of Daleks were crowding round him now, just as he was coming to the end of his recording. Their gunsticks were ready to fire, but before anything was fired, a wheezing, groaning sound began and a tall grey cylindrical capsule appeared, materialising around Marc.

From a distance, the Doctor could see the capsule, and decided that now was the time to emerge. He sprinted into the capsule a few seconds after Cory, and saw who was at the controls.  
His eyes widened.  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he yelled, as the Bishop piloted the TARDIS back towards Gallifrey.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	2. The Man Who Should Have Died - Part 2

**The Man Who Should Have Died**

**Part Two**

**Featuring the Twelfth Doctor**

_Kembel._

A green jungle. That was how anyone would describe Kembel. A green jungle that was home, at this moment in time, to a Space Security Agent trying to send a message to Earth. He had no friends to help him. No form of escape. No hope.  
And that was what was pushing him on: he had one chance to get this right, and he had to take that chance.  
"This is Marc Cory," he said into the recorder, "Special Security Service, reporting from the planet Kembel. The Daleks are planning the complete destruction of our galaxy. Together with the powers of the outer galaxies, a war force is being assembled."  
Dozens of Daleks were crowding round him now, just as he was coming to the end of his recording. Their gunsticks were ready to fire, but before anything was fired, a wheezing, groaning sound began and a tall grey cylindrical capsule appeared, materialising around Marc.

From a distance, the Doctor could see the capsule, and decided that now was the time to emerge. He sprinted into the capsule a few seconds after Cory, and saw who was at the controls.  
His eyes widened.  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he yelled, as the Bishop piloted the TARDIS back towards Gallifrey.  
"I, Doctor, am doing what you could never do. I am helping the Time Lords in their fight against the Daleks, and you will not stop me."

_Gallifrey, during the Time War..._

President Rassilon strode through the corridors of Gallifrey, wielding his mighty metal staff. He was accompanied by his personal guard, which was made up of the General, an old bald man with a very serious face, and the Admiral, a young woman who had long brown hair and yet stern eyes.  
"Can you tell me where the Bishop is about to land?" Rassilon demanded, as they continued to walk.  
"He should be landing 45 clicks ahead of us," the Admiral said, pausing until she could hear the familiar wheezing and groaning of a TARDIS, and then adding, "Now."  
The Bishop's TARDIS arrived, and the Bishop, Marc Cory and the Doctor emerged from it.  
"Doctor?!" Rassilon exclaimed in shock, "What the devil are you doing here?"  
"Rassilon, good to see you. Why the hell are you changing established history?"  
He sighed at the Doctor.  
"I should explain. You probably did not hear about what happened to the Bishop."  
"No, I didn't. The last time I saw him was on the Echosphere, when I stole his TARDIS and used it to steal the plans for the Dustmaker."  
"Yes. You left him for dead, or rather, a temporal echo of him."  
The Doctor raised his sharp eyebrows.  
"What?"  
"The Bishop's TARDIS was caught in an extreme temporal incident in the Vortex. A Dalek managed to enter the ship and shattered the temporal crystal at the ship's heart. So much energy was generated that a temporal echo of the Bishop was made. We sent the echo to the Echosphere in order to locate the right opening to Veruvalis, and allowed the other Bishop to freely explore the cosmos. When the Master killed the echo on my orders, we summoned the real Bishop to help us, and to sabotage Dalek history, so that the Daleks would have been wiped out before the war had even begun."  
"You have no right to do that. Have you forgotten who you are? Who you represent? You are Time Lords, and this is not what you do!"  
"Then what do we do, Doctor?! What do we do when every moment brings us further to our extinction? War is hell, is that what those humans that you love say? This war would have burnt us if we had thought like you."  
"Well perhaps that's a good thing."  
He started off back to the TARDIS, walking through the door and dematerialising the ship shortly afterwards, leaving the four Time Lords and Marc Cory alone.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor was frantically trying to find the incident in the Vortex that had caused the Bishop and his TARDIS to be duplicated.  
"Doctor!" Rassilon bellowed, as an image of the president flickered onto the white monitor, "What do you think you're doing?"  
"If you decide to change history, then I will as well. You have left me no choice, Rassilon. I am Time's Champion, the Oncoming Storm, the Butcher of Skull Moon, and if you mess with me, then I will rain down hell upon you!"

_Inside the Bishop's TARDIS, a very long time ago..._

The Bishop was not having a good day. His TARDIS was hurtling down the Time Vortex at an unprecedented speed, and he could not stop it. Also, he had heard rumours of Daleks that were able to travel in the Time Vortex were near him, meaning that he had to somehow land his TARDIS and prevent a Dalek from entering his ship. After that, he needed to get to Gallifrey, as Rassilon had a brand new mission for him.  
"Come on you stupid machine!" he yelled, thumping the console with a hammer, "Get me to safety now!"  
Strangely though, a wheezing, groaning sound began, and the Doctor's TARDIS appeared behind him.  
"Listen, I don't care what you have to say: just get in." the Doctor instructed, opening the doors for him. Not wanting to argue, he entered the Doctor's ship, which dematerialised soon after he had entered.

"Doctor, why are you here?" the Bishop wondered, as the Doctor danced around the central console, flipping levers and adjusting controls.  
"I can't tell you, but there's a reason. All you need to know is that something's gone wrong with time, and it's all very complicated."  
"Alright then. Where are we going?"  
"Gallifrey. I need to keep time just about intact, and that means I need to get you to the Echosphere."  
"Why are we going to Gallifrey then? Why can't you just put me on the Echosphere? And why do I need to get to the Echosphere?"  
The Doctor looked at him, with a sad smile on his face.  
"History has to play out as it should. Time Lords can change the little things, but big things have to stay. I have to play by the rules."

_Gallifrey, before the Time War..._

The Doctor and the Bishop emerged from the TARDIS into the TARDIS bays, frantically rushing to find a space-time machine that the Bishop liked.  
"This one." he finally decided, stepping inside.  
"Good. Now, let me give you the exact space-time co-ordinates of where you should go, and then you can be on your way."  
He zapped the Bishop's TARDIS with his sonic screwdriver: a small blue tube of metal, with four minute columns of crystal that glowed a bright white and it emitted a high-pitched whir when activated.  
"Thank you, Doctor. You've saved my life, and I'll do anything for you in return."  
"Well, do two things for me."  
"Go on."  
"Don't tell my other self about any of this, and tell my other self that your TARDIS' temporal crystal was damaged, and that you were sent by Rassilon to retrieve the plans of the Dustmaker."  
"I'll do that."  
He then entered his TARDIS and left, leaving the Doctor alone in the TARDIS bays.  
"One last thing to do."

_The EchoSphere, during the Time War..._

The Doctor eventually encountered the Bishop, who was still trying, and struggling, to find the time vortex that he needed.

"So then," the Doctor questioned him, "have I been brought here in an attempt to try and get me to fight in the Time War, or do you want to shoot me? If the _second _option is why I'm here, then why shoot me? You'd only be doing the Daleks a favour."

"Doctor, I have been instructed by Rassilon to go back in time and steal the plans for a weapon that has the potential to wipe entire constellations from existence."

"Bishop, what exactly will Rassilon do with these plans? And, come to think of it, why are you looking for a time vortex when you have a TARDIS?"

"My TARDIS's temporal crystal was damaged, so I came to the EchoSphere: the planet of pure time."

"You haven't answered my other question: what will Rassilon do with the plans?"

"He plans to use the plans to build the weapon, and destroy Skaro, as well as the other planets surrounding it."

The Doctor looked horrified to hear this.

"Do you want to know something, Bishop? You're the same, all of you, absolutely the same!"

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

"You kill and murder innocents, all in the name of war. You're not protecting the universe from the Daleks: you're making the threat worse. I reckon you would set fire to an entire field just to destroy one diseased crop. I cannot, I will not allow this to happen. Do you hear me? I will stop you!"

He then zapped his sonic screwdriver at his own TARDIS, which dematerialised with a brief and rapid wheeze and groan, and sprinted over towards the Bishop's TARDIS. A few seconds later, the Bishop noticed what the Doctor was trying to do, and tried to stop him but couldn't: with a powerful zap from his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor entered the other TARDIS, closing the door behind him. Soon, the TARDIS flew upwards, and rushed towards the nearest time vortex.

"Oh Doctor, what have you done?"

The Bishop was now alone, stranded, on the EchoSphere, with only his sonic screwdriver to help him.

"I wonder what life would be like," he wondered to himself, "if the Doctor would fight in the name of Gallifrey, and protect his own people from destruction."  
"Well, wouldn't that be pointless?" an old man's voice murmured from behind him, "The Doctor won't fight on your side, as he has too much compassion to be a warrior."

He turned round, and saw the man that had just spoken: an old man, with white hair and beard, and who was dressed in a tweed suit and waistcoat. His TARDIS was parked nearby, and he wielded a laser screwdriver.

However, before the Bishop could say anything else, the Master collapsed to the ground. The Doctor was stood behind him, holding a cricket bat that he had used to hit the Master.  
"You hit him?" the Bishop said, amazed.  
"Yes."  
"Why?"  
"Because I needed to prevent my people from gaining hold of a powerful crystal. And I needed to finalise the new timeline. Come on, we'd better go."  
The two Time Lords then left in the Doctor's TARDIS, leaving the Master alone.

_Gallifrey, during the Time War..._

Rassilon was enraged. The Doctor had managed to rewrite history so that the Bishop had never died on the Echosphere, and so that Marc Cory was never saved.  
"Sir," the Admiral enquired, "are you alright?"  
"No. The Dustmaker is gone, the Bishop is gone and the temporal crystal is gone. The Doctor is preventing us from having valuable weapons to use in the war, and so is damning his people."  
"I do have some news for you, sir."  
"Please let it be good news."  
"The Wolf is ready to hunt."  
He grinned with joy.  
"Thank you, Admiral. Let the Rani know that I give my authorisation for the Wolf to be released."  
"Understood, sir."  
The Admiral walked out of his office, leaving the President alone. 

**THE END**


End file.
